​Europe’s turn back to the left: Today Greece, Tomorrow Spain?

Dr. Roslyn Fuller is a lecturer in International Law based in Ireland. She is the author of Ireland’s leading textbook on International Law ‘Biehler on International Law: An Irish Perspective’ (Round Hall, 2013). In addition to her academic work, she has also writes for the Irish Times, The Irish Independent and The Journal on topics of law, politics and education.
Roslyn has been researching democracy for over a decade and is the author of “Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed Its Meaning and Lost Its Way” (October 2015, Zed Books). She tweets at @roslynfuller and can be reached at fullerr@tcd.ie.

People take part in a rally called by Podemos (We Can), at Madrid's Puerta del Sol landmark January 31, 2015. (Reuters/Susana Vera) / Reuters

A popular theory during the Cold War era demanded that no country could be allowed to adopt a communist government, as this would inevitably set off a chain of other states also becoming communist in a domino effect.

The domino theory was used quite successfully to justify violence
against any people clinging to the proscribed beliefs, but at its
heart it contained its own paradox – if communism was so bad, why
would one state becoming communist prompt people in other states
to want to try it out? Wouldn’t people be more likely to learn
from the mistakes of their neighbors and shy away from communism
themselves? Of course, the answer was that for your typical
starving peasant exploited by a rich landowner, colonialist
and/or local religious hierarchy and communism was not
necessarily a half-bad deal. While a socialist policy like
nationalizing natural resources might seem like a raw deal to
someone at the tippy-top of the economic pyramid, someone gazing
up from the bottom could see that same event from a quite
different angle. And most people are at the bottom. It pays to
bear that in mind.

Indeed, it explains much of the popularity of the recently
victorious left-wing Syriza party in Greece’s last elections, as
well as the swift rise of Podemos, the new Spanish party that now
looks likely to sweep the polls in Spanish national elections
later this year.

Today, of course, despite the much-harped on socialist roots of
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and Podemos front man Pablo
Iglesias, both one-time members of Communist Youth Parties,
neither Syriza nor Podemos advocates the kind of one-party,
centrally-planned state that tends to end in cast-iron statuary
and the mandatory singing of comradely hymns. Instead, both
parties focus on policies that would have been considered
centrist only a few decades ago. Syriza is committed to free
medical care for the jobless, electricity subsidies, exchanging a
universal property tax in favor of taxation on luxury homes and
large second properties, and cracking down on tax evasion. In
addition, both Syriza and Podemos want an end to the austerity
policies dictated by the European and International Monetary
Fund, a renegotiation of national debt, and the institution of
more meaningful democratic practices within their countries.

Far from “radical”, it’s perfectly sound policy in a
world where one percent of the population will soon control over
half of total global wealth. When productivity rises faster than
wages do (as it has over the past forty years thanks to
mechanization and trade deregulation), the result is surplus
production and therefore recession. Keeping wages low and profits high
cannot change this. Forcing people to work for nothing to produce
goods that they themselves cannot afford to buy cannot change
this. Only raising wages in line with increased productivity can.
Henry Ford, the famous creator of the Model T automobile and
modern assembly line, knew this, but somewhere along the way this
obvious truth was transformed from common sense into “radical
leftist politics.”

It’s an unjust accusation to make to two nations who could be
more fairly said to be suffering from “radical”
conservative politics – youth unemployment at well over 50
percent in both Spain and Greece (for older citizens, it’s a mere
25 percent), and corruption among the business and established
political elite runs rampant. Moreover, it brings back memories
of crises past where said “radicalism” was used to
justify support for military dictatorships – General Franco’s
rule of Spain from 1939-1975 and Greece’s shorter-lived military
junta from 1967-1974.

But despite their similar history, fair social policy and debt
renegotiation doesn’t just make sense for Spain and Greece; it
makes sense for most of the European Union. Thus, it is no
surprise to see politicians scrambling to contain the feared
‘domino effect’ of Syriza’s victory. This may take the form of
bemoaning the fact that Greece was due to “exit” its
bailout this year – despite the fact that exiting a bailout
program does not mean you get to exit your debt. It may take the
form of claiming that the recession is about to be over any
second now. It may simply be a diatribe on the hard work ethic of
the allegedly solvent Germans that fails to inform the reader
that while Germans might like to scrawl quaint little sayings
about the joys of industrious toil all over their quaint little
houses, they are also in debt to the tune of 84 percent of GDP, and that German welfare and
healthcare have been systematically cut over the past fifteen
years while many extremely qualified young Germans languish in
the near wageless pits of what they term “generation
internship.”

Why Europe needs Syriza, Podemos and any other progressive party
it can drum up

The European Union and even the euro currency weren’t necessarily
bad ideas. In a world of giant superpowers, having a group of
smaller countries band together to form one trading bloc (the EU)
for the sake of negotiating with foreign powers was definitely an
idea worth considering. In practice, however, it was mainly
considered by the invitation-only European Roundtable of Industrialists which
was concerned about the “high costs and low profits,
fragmentation of the European market, and excessive interference
by governments” in Europe and credits itself with having
done much of the groundwork on the existence of a single European
market, a project made possible by its close contacts with
“past, present and [somewhat disconcertingly] future heads of
state.” Top European politicians were more than happy to
work with ERT in creating a Europe with “lower costs and
higher profits” and without “government interference” or, as
it is otherwise known, a functioning legal system.

In the service of this endeavor, political power was centralized
into the European Union and placed largely within the unelected
European Commission. For example, a study showed that between
1998 and 2004, 84 percent of all German laws originated at a
European level, and these laws find their origins primarily
within the Commission.

European people were only asked to give their blessing to this
state of affairs at long and irregular intervals in referenda,
and when those referenda were answered in the negative, they were
circumvented or simply re-run until the answer came up ‘yes’.
Thus, Europeans floated listlessly into the future that their
leaders asked them to believe in – on credit, as it were. No one
seemed entirely clear on the specifics of this future, but it was
going to be much better than things were now, whatever that
meant. Perhaps a more sophisticated version of America, where
everyone would get free refills on soft drinks and ice cream
would come in 31 flavors, but you could still take a skip over to
the Sistine Chapel if you fancied a bit of culture. What
Europeans were asked to drift into – primarily by the old,
corrupt centre-right and centre-left parties who supported quick
EU integration – did not, I think it would be fair to say,
resemble a vision where people are evicted from their houses,
whose kids can’t get jobs and who lose their medical coverage and
benefits for the sake of paying off banks and financial
speculators only to be told that they themselves are the problem.
But such are the inevitable consequences of high profits, low
costs and a lack of government interference.

All things considered, it’s not shocking that people from all
walks of life – be they hippie liberals or immigration-skeptical
conservatives – have decided to pull the plug on the old guard.
“Work harder for less for no apparent reason!” is not
the most appealing political rallying cry, especially when those
at the top are doing nothing of the sort. And considering that
this is what Syriza, Podemos and other reformist parties are up
against in the form of the traditional parties, the question is
not so much “how can they win?” as “how can they
lose?” As Podemos’ Iglesias made clear at a weekend march in
Madrid: “This is not about asking for anything from the
government or protesting. It’s to say that in 2015 there will be
a government of the people.” He’s probably right. And it may
not end there. The other two ‘PIGS’, Ireland and Portugal, as
well as Britain, will hold elections in the next 18 months. While
these countries are historically more conservative,
anti-austerity movements have gained a lot of ground in the
recent past.

Ironically enough, it may be that the EU’s severe fiscal policy
achieved what it said it wanted all along – Europeans are
deciding that they do have a lot in common with each other, a lot
more than their leaders ever thought.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.